A Chinese Hostage Killed in Pakistani Rescue Bid

One hostage and five militants died Thursday when Pakistani army commandos tried to free two Chinese engineers held by followers of a former Guantanamo Bay inmate linked to Al Qaeda.

The engineers, who were working on the Gomal Zam Dam project near the border with Afghanistan, were abducted Saturday with their two Pakistani security personnel. The Pakistanis were released before troops stormed the militants’ hide-out in the remote tribal area of South Waziristan.

The kidnappers said they wanted to exchange the Chinese for militants captured during Pakistan’s crackdown on Al Qaeda. Their leader, Abdullah Mehsud, 28, returned to Pakistan in March after being held for two years in the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was not clear why he was released.

Officials in Pakistan and China, traditionally strong allies, expressed condolences to the family of the slain hostage and pledged to cooperate in countering further assaults, but the incident could alter Beijing’s foreign policy outlook.

“This is a wake-up call, a very unpleasant warning,” said Ni Lexiong, a military expert with the East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai. “It’s a real mental shock.”

Analysts said China never dreamed it would become a target.

“China always assumed, since it was friends with the Third World, that its citizens would not be killed by others in the Third World,” said Guo Shuyong, an international relations expert at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. “As late as yesterday, we assumed they’d be released. Even if it’s just one person, it’s a qualitative change in Chinese diplomacy.”

After a series of failed negotiations between Mehsud and Pakistani officials, commandos disguised as a tribal delegation raided the compound where the hostages were being held. In the ensuing firefight, Wang Peng, a surveyor on the dam project, was killed. Mehsud, who directed the kidnapping from a hiding place in the mountains, was not in the building at the time and remains at large.

The second Chinese engineer, Wang Ende, was taken to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

China has had some close calls in the past, analysts said, including the kidnapping of seven citizens in Iraq in April. But each time, they were released. “This is the first time Chinese have been taken and killed in this style,” said Jia Qingguo, associate dean of international studies at Peking University. “This raises people’s awareness of the potential dangers.”

Chinese analysts speculated that the kidnappers, angered by Islamabad’s close links with Washington, wanted to undermine and humiliate the Pakistani government by kidnapping citizens of a closely allied nation. China has several hundred engineering projects in Pakistan.

“So far it’s only been two engineers,” said Ni, the military expert.

“In the future, though, it could be an attack on our embassy. It puts China in a difficult position. If China looks too soft, it’s not good for our government’s image.”

In a statement, China’s Foreign Ministry went out of its way to detail the country’s extensive efforts to release the hostages and counter the terrorist threat. It cited concerns by President Hu Jintao and various government ministries as well as the dispatch of a crisis team to Pakistan to help in the rescue efforts.

China’s statement reflects the government’s growing attention to the welfare of its citizens overseas, Jia said. Last year, 20 million Chinese traveled overseas, a hundredfold increase since 1978, when the country was still closed.

Others said that, assuming China’s economy continues to grow and its diplomatic stance becomes even less at odds with the United States, Beijing is likely to become more of a target for disgruntled groups from developing countries.

In general, Beijing has supported the Bush administration’s war on terrorism. And it has been pleased by a U.S. decision to categorize pro-independence groups in China’s far western region of Xinjiang as terrorists.

But Beijing differs with Washington over strategy, some said.

“China thinks the war on terror should be fought on two fronts -- fighting terrorists directly and eliminating the causes that lead to terrorism, including the growing inequality in international society,” Jia said. “China and the international society very much hope the U.S. will attach more importance to the second goal.”

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Special correspondent Zaidi reported from Islamabad and staff writer Magnier from Beijing. Yin Lijin in The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.